Fellow Jeep enthusiasts, welcome to the 2012 JF Cherokee Of The Year contest!
December is the time to line up all of the COTM's chosen throughout the year and pick one for COTY honors.

Here’s your chance to have a look at some of the more popular XJ’s on the forum this year. I have to admit I like them all so this may be a tough decision. It's up to you to help decide who will be the winner. Take time to check 'em out and when you find your favorite, show your support and approval by casting your vote. Feel free to post up with positive comments or discussion and bump this thread as needed
Also please click the button just under the poll to help keep this thread up all week in the top five voted/crawled threads on the JF homepage.

This poll will run 10 days instead of the normal 7 so voting will span two weekends and close on Christmas morning. Contestant picture count has been increased to 4 for this event. Normal COTM contestant Rules and Guidelines apply. If your Jeep is entered, you can review them here: COTM Rules and Guidelines

Here are your 2012 Cherokee Of The Year entries in the order received. Let’s get this started and see where it goes!

Best Trail Damage: First time crawling on some rocks with no skid plate and I cracked my T-case open

Optional: Got my Cherokee in 07 as a graduation present because I couldn't really fit in my old 99 Saturn (I'm 6'9"). When I got it, she had 1 previous owner who only put 32k on it. In 2011 I finally put together the money to lift it. I went with a cheapo kit just to do a little local wheeling in mud and what not. I quickly got bored with that and into crawling. Slowly I've been turning it into what I want it to be, mostly by upgrading when I break stuff. Next step is 35x12.5s, Front locker and alloy shafts, gears, and a rear bumper.

Day I got it.

Yellow Jacket at Rausch Creek still on short arms.

Really spooky feeling on 3 wheels.

Flex.

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COTY line-up continues in next post...

__________________
***Chris***

"You can set my jeep on fire and roll it down a hill,
But I still wouldn't trade it for a Coupe DeVille."

Optional: After my YJ was stolen, I didn't know what I wanted to replace it with. Bike, car, pickup, another Wrangler...saw the XJ one night while browsing craigslist. I didn't know any of the technical differences between the years, but after 6 hours of bus rides and transfers I made it to the dealer and picked it up. Lucky me, it was a '99. Daily-driven 55 miles a week to work and back.

Optional: - So I went to a BBQ for my wife's work and the guy had this XJ just sitting there (he lives on 5 acres). I asked if he would sell the front axle (I hadn't really looked yet and I assumed it was a non-cad HPD30 - I was wrong), he said I'll sell you the whole thing for $100. So the next thing you know I've got this XJ sitting in my garage with the wrong front axle, a crappy rear axle, no grill, crappy motor/tranny, etc.

From there is just kind of happened. I found an MJ on CL for $100, bought it for $80 and took the grill and the tailgate and then got $125 from the junkyard. Then I found the tires on CL for $500, then a rear XJ D44 for $200 - I finally decided to go ahead and build it since I had all the parts - of course I had to go the junkyard and pull an actual non-cad HPD30 like I wanted in the first place...